Archer Surround Amp Restoration
- Details
- Written by: JC
- Category: Electronic Projects
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Ahh, the good ole days of Radio Shack! It was an end of an era when they closed all stores down. I remember going to my local Radio Shack for the “out-of-business sale” and buying components for a $1 each; I ran the longest receipt I have ever seen. Anyway, you might recognize the “Archer” brand name brand that was sold at your Radio Shack, which was basically your entry level stuff; nothing too thrilling, but it got the job done and you had a little fun too. This article isn’t about the history of Archer, but more so focused on finding the stuff in the wild these days and restoring it.
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I found this bad boy on the free shelf at Free Geek Twin Cities. The cord was cut off, but the rest of it looked in good condition. I was mainly interested in using this as another utility audio amplifier, so the extra video switching capability didn’t matter much to me. I did find it funny it was labeled a “surround sound” amplifier since it just emulated a surround back channel, it didn’t have a capability to input separate rear left/right signals. Multi channel via single cable didn’t come out until digital coax and Toslink. |
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Back to the restoration – I just needed to clean this thing up and get the power cord replaced. I took everything apart and wiped it all down. I already had a replacement cord in my pile I could use for this, which was very nice. The hardest part was getting the wire strain relief to cooperate with the new power cable and inserted into the chassis. I decided to leave the pots and switches be as they would be a pain to source (and probably expensive). I knew things would be scratchy, but as a utility amp, I didn’t care that much. |
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After testing for successful power and going though all functions, I found everything was working great, just the expected scratchiness. That was the green light to put everything back in place. I was able to do some more playing around and found that the “FM synthesizer function” just drove the audio harder through the preamp. I also found this uses the LA4270 integrated IC for amplification, which has a dismal 6 watts at 8 Ohms per channel, but I guess for mostly TV watching back in the 90’s it was fine. |
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